Monthly Archives: June 2018

In a few days, it’ll be July (can you believe that?!) and with that we’ll be in the third quarter. You’re probably thinking now about third quarter goals for your business, and one you should add, is monitoring your Google AdWords account to see if it’ll be switching to the new interface next month.

According to a recent article from Search Engine Land, there’s a chance that the new AdWords interface will be coming to your account this July. Google first announced the new interface two years ago. The Search Engine Land article reports some advertisers have already received notifications from Google that their accounts will switch to the new interface next month. Once the new interface is here, advertisers will not be able to switch back, and some features and reports will not be available in the new AdWords experience. Google will send email notifications before they switch over accounts.

Search Engine Land writes that this switch will not happen overnight, but by the end of the October everyone will be on this new interface. Google has promised it will not change people’s interfaces during November or December.

The article advises that users should learn the new interface as soon as they can. Although Search Engine Land writes that the new interface will be intuitive, it will still be learning curve either way.

Don’t be afraid to contact Sperling Interactive with any of your AdWords questions. We’re available at (978) 304-1730 and info@sperlinginteractive.com.

You may think of Amazon as your go-to shopping outlet, but did you know they also own the world’s premiere cloud computing service, Amazon Web Services? Since 2006, Amazon Web Services has been helping businesses of all sizes with their computing, data storage, analytics, application, and deployment services. Today, let’s take a look at why you should continue to utilize Amazon and, in particular, this product.

Many major companies use Amazon Web Services. The streaming giant, Netflix, was one of the first big companies to adopt Amazon Web Services and it did so back in 2009. In 2015, Netflix moved all of its IT operations to Amazon Web Services, and is seen as the first company to make Amazon Web Services more mainstream. Other big companies that utilize Amazon Web Services today include Hertz, Time, Inc., Pinterest, and Airbnb.

We use Amazon Web Services to host our clients’ websites.As a web development company, we use Amazon Web Services to host our clients’ websites. What’s great about Amazon Web Services is that it’s compatible with the three content management systems (CMS) we use: WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. Amazon Web Services is great as it has the withband to cope with large website traffic without crashing.

Amazon Web Services is cost effective.We also use Amazon Web Services because it only charges you for the services you use. There’s no up-front costs or contracts. With Amazon Web Services, you have the option to pay as you go or you can pay on a fixed monthly setup. You can end your relationship with Amazon Web Services at any time, or upgrade or downgrade their services whenever you please.

Amazon Web Services is very secure. Amazon Web Services has data centers all over the world that are continuously monitored and maintained. The reason Amazon has multiple data centers is that in the event one center has a problem, it won’t impact everyone worldwide. The location of these data centers are hidden, and that’s so no one can break in and obtain their clients’ private information. This makes Amazon Web Services stand out from the crowd. Their product is more reliable and responsible than anyone else’s out there.

Even if you aren’t a federal regulation, It’s been that more and more ADA compliance lawsuits are winning in court. With most people owning a smartphone and other mobile devices, it’s not a surprise that many of today’s discrimination cases are trickling into the digital world.

Today, any business that is considered a “public accommodation” must have an ADA compliant website. The most common types of businesses people considered to be a “public accommodation” include B2C businesses, retail, or any type of business the public could easily access. We at Sperling Interactive believe that even if you have a B2B business, you should still have an ADA compliant website. This will make you more SEO friendly, and also, who doesn’t want to accessible to all web users?

What is calling tracking?

Call tracking, also known as call analytics, call attributions, and call intelligence, is a form of marketing analytics technology. It helps businesses measure the calls they receive from their websites and pay-per-click campaigns.

Why call tracking works

Phone calls lead to buys. After people engage with a business’ online content, what can push them to buy from that business is a phone call with them. It makes sense. When people make a call, their intent to buy is generally higher and they’re typically further along in the customer-purchasing journey. Phone calls give them a chance to interact with the company, gain more information from them through asking questions, and ultimately determine if they trust the company.

Call tracking can teach you what keywords are working. The phone calls you receive will tell you a lot about how your campaign is going. If people start calling, asking for a service or product you don’t offer or make, you’ll know that you’ll have to add some more keywords to your negative keyword list and re-adjust your landing pages so you don’t misrepresent your business. In turn, this can improve your search engine optimization.

Call tracking can let marketers know when people are calling. By knowing what times people are calling your business, marketers can better run campaigns and divy up their budgets better so more clicks lead to phone calls.

Call tracking records phone calls. This can be beneficial for businesses as it lets them know how they’re communicating with potential clients and customers and ways in which they can approve. It also teaches them more about their target audience so they can continue to better their marketing and sales tactics and evolve their business.Call tracking can track outbound calls, too. Outbound calls are just as important as inbound calls.Calling tracking can help you see how your correspondence with a potential customer or client is panning out.

Call tracking can help you see how your marketing efforts are going. With call tracking, you can really see how your marketing efforts are working and what marketing tactics are bringing in leads and conversions because of the data it provides. From there, you’ll know what marketing efforts to spend less time and money on.

The key to successfully nailing paid search is keywords. Bidding on the right keywords will allow you to pop up in the search queries your target audience is using. Google and PPC professionals say there are four different types of keywords when it comes to paid search, and they are worth checking out as they can help boost relevant clicks.

Broad

Broad keywords are considered by many as the default keyword type. Broad keywords will give you the widest reach. They will match to search queries that have misspellings, synonyms, related searches, words out of order, and anything else that Adwords deems relevant. You want to be careful with broad keywords, though. While they can help you receive a lot of clicks, you want to make sure you’re not getting irrelevant clicks. Always monitor your campaigns, and make a list of negative keywords as you go along.

Broad Match

Broad match modifier are keywords that have a ‘+’ in front of the keyword. Important to note – you don’t have to put a ‘+’ in front of every word in the query, and the order of the words does not matter. Broad match are right in the middle when it comes to the four types of keywords and can perform pretty strongly. Through the plus sign, you can have better control of where your ads pop up by locking individual words.

Phrase

Phrase keywords are keywords that are put in quotations. For a search query to match a phrase keyword, it must contain all the words, or at least close variants, in the same order without any words in between, with additional words before or after. Close variants include misspellings, singular and plural words, acronyms, abbreviations, and accents.

Exact

Exact keywords have the lowest reach, but the highest relevance. Exact keywords are put in brackets. Only ads that match the keywords exactly will pop up.

Need help choosing keywords for your paid search work? Sperling Interactive would love you to identify the right keywords for your organization.

What is market segmentation?

Market segmentation is a type of marketing where you target specific groups of people. When you do market segmentation, you essentially put your target audience into groups and create specific campaigns geared towards each group. There are four types of market segmentation: geographic segmentation, demographic segmentation, psychographic segmentation, and behavioral segmentation.

Why is market segmentation important?

When you use market segmentation, you show your diverse audience that you respect them because you’re coming at them with marketing that they resonate with. You’re showing you know that even in subgroups, not everyone in your target audience is the same and you hear all of your target audience’s needs and concerns. You basically win over people by not generalizing groups of people.

Geographic segmentation

Geographic segmentation is when you create a specific marketing strategy for people within a certain area. Businesses that really benefit from using geographic segmentation are ones that serve a specific community, sell seasonal products, or companies that just opened a store in a new territory.

Demographic segmentation

Demographic segmentation is a hyper-focused approach. It’s when you target people based on their age, gender, race, religion, family size, ethnicity, income, and/or level of education. This type of market segmentation is favorable for businesses where their audience is a certain demographic.

Psychographic segmentation

Psychographic segmentation is when you market to people based on their personalities. Our personalities are influenced by our values, morals, interests, hobbies, and lifestyle. Psychographic segmentation is another hyper-focused market segmentation. Retail, publishing, and travel are three industries that should use psychographic segmentation.

Behavioral segmentation

Behavioral segmentation deals with consumers’ buying habits. Consumers’ purchases, money, time, and lifestyle all make up this marketing strategy. With this market segmentation, get into your consumer’s head before you take action. When does your target audience most need you. Let’s say you own a card company, for instance. You’re most profitable during Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and the holidays. The slowest time of the year is August as it’s summertime and there are no holidays. You want to make sure you’re doing the big bulk of your behavioral segmentation marketing during the end of January, the beginning of May, the beginning of June, and the end of November. You don’t want to wait to close to these holidays to start your marketing campaigns as you’ll lose people. With behavioral segmentation, it’s all about reaching your target audience before they make a decision.

After reading this blog post, do you feel you need help marketing to your target audience? Contact Sperling Interactive today for a plan of action! At Sperling Interactive, we’re all about stretching your marketing dollars further.